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Norfolk & Region

Ontario an eye-opener for European youth

Lion Sherry Welsh, left, of Windham, played host to three guests from Europe this summer as part of the local Lions’ annual youth exchange. They are, from second left, Jakob Mauhar of Austria, Jake Diprose of England and Lawrence Locquet of Belgium. (MONTE SONNENBERG Simcoe Reformer)

Fifteen young people arrived from Europe June 25 for the annual Lions youth exchange in Zone A-2.

All returned home on Saturday, but not before enjoying a pool party and barbecue at a lakefront home in Selkirk.

Three of the youths spent their month in southern Ontario at the home of Sherry Welsh of Windham.

Many will remember Welsh as the itinerate fundraiser who roamed the province on foot in years past on behalf of Camp Dorset near Haliburton, the Lions’ summer retreat for kidney patients and their families.

One of the guests was Lawrence Locquet, 20, of Lueven, Belgium. Of all the places he could spend his summer, Locquet chose Canada because it was far away.

“I didn’t want to go somewhere in Europe,” Locquet said. “I can do that alone. Doing Canada would be more difficult. It looked nice. And it is nice.”

Locquet is impressed with Ontario’s wide-open rural areas. By contrast, no one would ever call Europe spacious. Centuries of human habitation mean most every parcel of land there is developed to some degree.

Locquet admires the forethought that has gone into the layout and design of Ontario’s towns and cities. Streets here are straight and wide while blocks are nice and square. That’s rarely the case in Europe’s urban areas, many of which date to a haphazard time of ox carts and horse-drawn carriages.

“Canada has learned from our mistakes,” Locquet said.

Jakob Mauhar, 17, hails from the ancient town of Leibnitz in Austria. The history of human habitation in this part of Austria dates to Roman times and beyond.

“I wanted to go far away,” he explained. “You don’t get a lot of chances to go to Canada or the United States when you are in Europe. The next step would be Asia or Taiwan.”

Because land is at a premium in long-settled areas of Europe, everything there tends to be smaller than in North America. Mauhar notes that “everything here is bigger – the houses, the streets, the cars.”

Hulking pickup trucks are a common sight in rural Ontario but rare in Europe. Mauhar said only Europeans with deep pockets could afford to keep a gas-guzzling pickup on the road in his part of the world.

Mauhar is also surprised that police in Ontario tolerate motorcycles with loud exhaust pipes. Motorcycle enthusiasts say loud pipes contribute to public safety by notifying others of their presence. But Mauhar says this wouldn’t be tolerated in his neck of the woods.

“If you had motorcycles like this in Austria, you’d drive maybe 200 metres and the police would stop you and test to see how loud you are,” he said.

Both Locquet and Mauhar commented on the fact of round-the-clock retailing in southern Ontario. Europeans, they said, prefer more modest hours and days off for family time.

Jake Diprose, 17, hails from Salisbury in England. He lives 20 minutes away from Stonehenge -- the ancient monument of lore and legend.

Diprose ended up at Welsh’s after a member of his initial host family came down with a bad case of sciatica. He opted for Canada because he wanted to meet Canadians up close and personal.

“I heard some really good things about Canada – that the land is really beautiful and the people are nice and hospitable,” Diprose said.

Lions’ Zone A-2 extends from Niagara Falls in the east to Long Point in the west.